Who else agrees that Civ 5 has been dumbed down?
- Thread starter KingYosef
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Veneke said:
On lower levels it's an irrelevant, since you can do pretty much anything and win. Looking back at my first Emperor win in Civ 4, I was noobing it up by building stonehenge, thinking philosophy was useless, and treating every AI like dirt. But hey, Vanilla AIs suck against axe rushes, so bombs away
. Veneke said:
Really? I think micromanaging is alive and well in Civ 5, and not just not the military side. Workers can still be optimized, at least for now, it's kinda interesting trying to determine whether it's worth it to get a short, cheap road or a longer road with better logistics. Growth can also be micromanaged against the desire for happiness Golden Ages. Contrast this with Civ 4, where growing to happy cap and progressively whipping out buildings was a no-brainer.
As for game length, TheMeinTeam has pretty entertaining youtube videos. While I'm not as fast as him, my longest ever BTS game was 9 hrs (Deity), with lower levels averaging 3.5-4 hours. Not that this is a bad thing mind you. My biggest complaint about Civ 5 is the length of games.
SomethingWitty
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There are 37 or so buildings in vanilla Civ IV, not counting various flavors of religious buildings. There are around 44 in Civ V.
Is that what you meant by less options?
On lower levels it's an irrelevant, since you can do pretty much anything and win. Looking back at my first Emperor win in Civ 4, I was noobing it up by building stonehenge, thinking philosophy was useless, and treating every AI like dirt. But hey, Vanilla AIs suck against axe rushes, so bombs away
For the vast majority of people (I'm basing this on the raging debate I remember reading years ago), the SE vs CE argument mattered, a good bit. I haven't looked in a while, but I don't think they came to a definitive conclusion. Either way, 5 years and still not be 100% sure of the best way to take your economy (even with all the numbers) is probably something to write home about.
I'm not saying that CIV had the best economy ever, merely pointing out that there was a good bit of debate over how best to play it. There's less debate, from what I'm seeing, in CiV.
I'll yield the military micromanagement in CiV, though I'll use your own argument and say it's not needed.
I'm not buying though that the economy in CiV has more opportunities for micromanagement than CIV's had.I'll have to look up that bloke's videos. Impressive enough times you have there. My own are similar, though a fraction longer I'd wager, by about half an hour I think. I wouldn't be quite so quick with the whipping argument. Definitely true in some situations, but not so in others. Regardless though, to bring it back to the topic at hand, your very examples are, I would consider, an example of macro-management rather than micromanagement. Considering that happiness is now global as are golden ages, whereas whipping etc were city-specific and therefore micro.
Some choices are better than others. If there are 100 buildings in CiV, but only 1 is any good, then there's really only one option as far as complexity is concerned. I'm exaggerating here in the hope that I can communicate my point, which has clearly been lost entirely on you.
A numbers comparison is useless because it doesn't measure complexity. Much, much more thought and analysis has to go into measuring complexity. Fortunately, the human brain is relatively good at guessing, with reasonable accuracy, the complexity of something. It can weigh up the options and costs and a dozen other factors that are extremely difficult to actually formulate. That's why this thread is an opinion poll and not a step-by-step examination of how CiV has (or hasn't been) been "dumbed down".
I'm sure there is a system to measure complexity, and I'm equally sure that's its extraordinarily complex. Further, I'm definitely sure that very few, if anyone, actually used that system to inform their vote (which is why we're not all agreeing).
SomethingWitty
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It's actually rather simple. Numbers comparison.
Civ V is not significantly less complex than Civ IV. You're in error there.
Perhaps you're upset that vanilla Civ IV is less complex then Civ IV + expansions + player mods.
No... just no.
dragomaster
Warlord
whohoooo, we are in the lead. I hope the developers ses this. Me myself uninstaled and sold the game today. So next time I play civ it will be Civ IV BTS 
Well the fact that building are unidimentional.. they do 1 thing and unlock a better one that cost a little more doing the same thing a bit better... etc.
there's absolutly no complexity in the building system.. it feel has deep has a facebook game! Plus there almost no complexity in the tile yield either. They all virtually the same and pretty boring.
So even if their is 7 more buildings in CIV V than CIV IV vanilla (which had its share of heat too) they were MUCH more dynamic.
Their no doubt that the game is being dumb down, either by purpose to reach a wider public or by rushing it in, but its the reason why there's so many critics. You cant throw a game that's at its Beta stage with all the hype they've put up.
Btw Critics arnt a bad thing... it means we care about the game... it would hurt a lot more if all those complainers just went away.
Ive played civ since civ 2. In my view Civ 5 is definitely a step sideways for the genre. They have introduced a number of decent ideas that may be worth pursuing. These would include:
1 Unit per tile
2 The social policy system (i disagree with the view that this is a step backwards and we should re introduce civics)
3 Resources limit the number of units you can build
4 Empire wide happiness
5 Each civ is now completely unique. Previous civilizations only solicited a fairly superficial distinction. Civ 5 has taken this to a new level IMO. The only problem is, the balancing issues are way off.
The game fails on a number of issues, but most specifically:
1 Diplomacy. Diplomacy has always been a sore spot in the civ franchise. Civ 2 diplo was a joke and way too aggressive. Civ 3 too dumb. Civ 4 was a vast improvement. I also thought alpha centurai's AI was ahead of its time. Civ 5 diplo is odd. There is no way to understand how the cpu views you. It kind of makes me think that they tried to replicate multiplayer for single player, which was too ambitious and impossible anyway.
2 Micro management. For some, especially new players, this is a positive thing. For me however, its not so good. The distinction between poor, good and great players in civ 4 rested upon those who could micro well (obviously married with sound strategy). The addition of running a SE or CE in Civ 4 was a really good tactical decision that rivalled the option of using fungus tiles in SMAC instead of regular improvements. This rerquires a degree of micro to work, and trying to remove it entirely is a step backwards IMO. It makes me think that they simply want to port it to consoles, when civ has always been a PC strategy game, which necessitates a higher degree of strategy (which means micro).
3 Tile improvements. This is linked to the abolition of health/sickness. I really dont get why they dropped it. Whats now the point of all those food resources? What makes it even more ludicrous is that these food resources are almost useless. Why does my irrigated corn only produce 3 food, when after civil service my grassland river tile produces 4 food? This effects city size too. It seems odd that they allow cities to now work a huge amount of tiles (30), but your city is never really going to grow beyond the 10-15 range.
4 City states! I envisaged a system whereby city states would draw the AI and human player into wars via proxy. The system as it stands is too exploitable and random.
5 General mess of the game. Although i dont hate the fact that city tiles expand one by one, it can make for some pretty odd looking maps. I also think, considering that the capital is now so important, that the developers ought to vastly increase a cities ocean borders. In real life states have territorial waters that can stretch many hundreds of miles.
6 The omission of aspects considered by many civ fans to be step backwards. Namely religion and espionage (although i hated espionage in civ 4)
7 The AI. Its great the AI is more intelligent on one level (winning the game). Unfortunately, because they have made the One unit per tile rule, this has made the tactical decisions so complicated, the hman (even a poor one), will be vastly superior to the cpu in warfare. IMO the gap between the AI and human has increased from civ 4 because combat is so much more complicated.
There are many more issues of course. I dont think civ 5 is a bad game, i think it is a good game. BUT, the moment a game strays too far from its roots, is the moment it can eventually die *(or be superseded by something else). Call to power 2 springs to mind. Why they cant make a separate game for consoles and PC's is beyond me.
1 Unit per tile
2 The social policy system (i disagree with the view that this is a step backwards and we should re introduce civics)
3 Resources limit the number of units you can build
4 Empire wide happiness
5 Each civ is now completely unique. Previous civilizations only solicited a fairly superficial distinction. Civ 5 has taken this to a new level IMO. The only problem is, the balancing issues are way off.
The game fails on a number of issues, but most specifically:
1 Diplomacy. Diplomacy has always been a sore spot in the civ franchise. Civ 2 diplo was a joke and way too aggressive. Civ 3 too dumb. Civ 4 was a vast improvement. I also thought alpha centurai's AI was ahead of its time. Civ 5 diplo is odd. There is no way to understand how the cpu views you. It kind of makes me think that they tried to replicate multiplayer for single player, which was too ambitious and impossible anyway.
2 Micro management. For some, especially new players, this is a positive thing. For me however, its not so good. The distinction between poor, good and great players in civ 4 rested upon those who could micro well (obviously married with sound strategy). The addition of running a SE or CE in Civ 4 was a really good tactical decision that rivalled the option of using fungus tiles in SMAC instead of regular improvements. This rerquires a degree of micro to work, and trying to remove it entirely is a step backwards IMO. It makes me think that they simply want to port it to consoles, when civ has always been a PC strategy game, which necessitates a higher degree of strategy (which means micro).
3 Tile improvements. This is linked to the abolition of health/sickness. I really dont get why they dropped it. Whats now the point of all those food resources? What makes it even more ludicrous is that these food resources are almost useless. Why does my irrigated corn only produce 3 food, when after civil service my grassland river tile produces 4 food? This effects city size too. It seems odd that they allow cities to now work a huge amount of tiles (30), but your city is never really going to grow beyond the 10-15 range.
4 City states! I envisaged a system whereby city states would draw the AI and human player into wars via proxy. The system as it stands is too exploitable and random.
5 General mess of the game. Although i dont hate the fact that city tiles expand one by one, it can make for some pretty odd looking maps. I also think, considering that the capital is now so important, that the developers ought to vastly increase a cities ocean borders. In real life states have territorial waters that can stretch many hundreds of miles.
6 The omission of aspects considered by many civ fans to be step backwards. Namely religion and espionage (although i hated espionage in civ 4)
7 The AI. Its great the AI is more intelligent on one level (winning the game). Unfortunately, because they have made the One unit per tile rule, this has made the tactical decisions so complicated, the hman (even a poor one), will be vastly superior to the cpu in warfare. IMO the gap between the AI and human has increased from civ 4 because combat is so much more complicated.
There are many more issues of course. I dont think civ 5 is a bad game, i think it is a good game. BUT, the moment a game strays too far from its roots, is the moment it can eventually die *(or be superseded by something else). Call to power 2 springs to mind. Why they cant make a separate game for consoles and PC's is beyond me.
You are completely missing the point. The number of buildings has nothing to do with complexity.
Complexity comes down to decisions, and the number of decisions that are needed in Civ5 is much less than Civ4.
MaximumPain
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Boris Godunov
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I'm sure this has been pointed out, but I'll reiterate for the sake of intellectual honesty: polls with self-selecting samples are worthless.
Psyringe
Scout
Well - actually, the "intellectually honest" statement would be: Polls with self-selecting samples are of limited value.
You can't use them to estimate the opinions of a bigger population (since they aren't representative for any other population than their participants), but the fact that the participating part of this community is almost evenly split between "yes" and "no" is a statement. You can also compare it to other polls which have been cast in similar environments. Trying to sweep it away with a general "such polls are worthless" statement isn't any more honest or legitimate than trying to to interpret the results as representative for all people who bought Civ5, really.
MaximumPain
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I've given the people around me strict orders to shoot me if I start parroting what others around me say.
Zechnophobe
Strategy Lich
So instead of coming up with a definitive way to measure complexity, you arbitrarily decided to count the number of different buildings?
Perhaps you should just go help these guys over at the wikipedia page for it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complexity
Because measuring complexity is really complex.
ANYway. When people talk about complexity, lets start with:
* The number of seemingly viable DISTINCT courses of action at a given point, or as an average of a span of time.
That a good start? But there is another thing to consider:
* How your opinion of viable courses changes as time goes on.
The first part talks about the breadth of the game. As you play are you constantly trying to figure out which course of action is better? Do you feel you must analyze the situation a lot to continue forward, or do you just keep doing the same thing while hitting 'next turn'?
The second part talks about the depth of the game. After you've played a while, have you realized things that will effect further games? Are you constantly learning new important things about the game, or does playing the second or third game start feeling the same?
I have an issue with both parts. It feels very much like the decisions presented to me are not well balanced, and not very numerous. And after a good long time, that is still what I'm thinking. Once I learned about city states, how to use zoc to protect units, and diplomacy tricks... that's it. I'm done.
Even more so as the game progresses. I mean look at the modern era or future era tech trees. Remove all techs that give only units or space ship parts. Woa.. where'd it go? Are those really the only things I get to do after the industrial era... kill people and build space ships? Even if we don't consider the the BTS corporations, civ 4 still had really cool wonders like Hollywood or the three gorges damn.
Or we can take it from the start. Each ruler has two traits, and a unique unit that is shared among leaders of the same Civilzation. 5 has very lackluster 'traits' that often only effect small parts of the game (england) or very limited eras (Germany). There are also less of them with no mixing and matching.
Even then, as soon as the game starts you have a plethora of things to consider. Choosing a starting location in civ 4 is incredibly deep and interesting. This is because the tile yields can be very bombastic. That's a lot of Dye in that jungle, should I go for it? But I'll need calendar AND iron working. Hmm. Or maybe the flood plain spot, but where will I get hammers. Can I stay on the river and still get at least one mountain?
moscaverde
Prince
Appart from the more hardcore civ players, I don't remember that winning or the 'right way to play' from civ 4. It was very commom to new people create a thread saying how they played the game (some people only played after tweaking the game using worldbuilder, etc.) and the response prevalently was play the game the way you feel fun.
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